The Upside of Unrequited

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli, author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda 
Publisher: Balzer and Bray
Release Date: April 11, 2017
Overall Rating: 4.5/5 

Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love. No matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.

Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly's totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie's new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. If Molly can win him over, she'll get her first kiss and she'll get her twin back.
There's only one problem: Molly's coworker, Reid. He's a chubby Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there's absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?

Review:

This book, this book, my heart. That's a quick summary of my feelings about this book. This book is so so cute and wonderful. Molly has had twenty-six crushes to date, and in this book we get to see her meet crush number twenty-seven. It's rare to see a YA romance about a fat female character. Sometimes in romantic comedies we'll see a fat female lead, but she either has to go on some incredible weight-loss journey, or some noble guy has to be able to see the beauty underneath. This book doesn't do any of that. Molly calls herself fat, and not in a negative way. It is a fact about her and there's no reason to shy away from acknowledging it, even though she does struggle with her self image at times. When she has negative self-thought, she confronts it head on and says, "I know I shouldn't feel this way and there's nothing wrong with me, but sometimes thoughts like this still pop up." And even when people like her grandmother (who has the best intentions, but is misguided) try to get her to change things about herself, she doesn't give into that hateful chatter in the back of her mind. 


While the romantic elements are a main part of the story, this is also a story about family and love familial, platonic, and romantic. Molly and Cassie's family is multiracial and are often told that Nadine isn't really their mom, Xavier isn't really their brother, and Abby isn't really their cousin because they're connected by choice and love, rather than blood. This also happens because they don't look alike in the way people expect them to, but they don't let that make them doubt their relationships. They never let other people convince them that Nadine doesn't love them just as much as their biological mother Patty or that Nadine loves Xavier, who she gave birth to, any more than she loves Molly and Cassie. Their family isn't perfect because no family is, but they were beautiful to see and read about.

This book was so sweet and happy but not in a sickening, cheesy sort of way. The ending was bittersweet to me, but that's also partially because I was having an emotional night. I didn't want the book to end and I loved it the whole way through. 

This is a drawing by illustrator Simini Blocker, and you can find her blog and more of her work here.